Opinions - Can anyone help me?

[vdub]

This year is the first time I have successful poppies growing.
My poppies are doing well, the flowers just fell off yesterday. My problem is that the weather forecast said it is going to rain for the next 3 or 4 days. I know that when the flowers fall off you should not water because it can leach the alkaloids out of the plant of weaken the opium.

Has anyone ever been in this situation?
If so, any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

[samuraigecko]

By not watering, what is actually meant is not to water the foliage or pods. Watering the root system is fine.

A bit of rain should not bother the pods too much if the petals have only just fallen off. It would be a far different matter if a scientist was intending on bleeding the pods for raw latex.

4 days of continued rain may reduce the pods potency slightly but it is going to take another week or so at least before the pods swell and ripen anyway.

Hope this has been of theoretical or scientific help

Reputation Comments on this post:

great response